Undead and Unappreciated by MaryJanice Davidson Page A

herself, she must have totally freaked. Dumped the baby, tried to get things back to normal. Then later, she managed to talk my dad into marriage. So she got what she wanted, eventually.”
    â€œBut at what cost?” Sinclair asked. He was sitting cross-legged on my right side and turned to give me a look that was almost scorching. Then the moment passed, and he was back to his notes.
    â€œRight,” I said uneasily. “Okay! So, Satan went back to Hell, the Ant broke up my parents’ marriage, my sister was dumped into the foster care system, and now we gotta find her before she takes over the world!”
    â€œAn interesting agenda,” Tina said, bringing up a small hand to cover her smile.
    â€œFor all the good it will do,” Sinclair said, “your sister is fated to rule the world. As you will recall from your own late reading, there is not a lot of gray area in the Book. I doubt anything we can do will prevent the daughter of the devil from doing that which she pleases.”
    â€œWell, we’re gonna try!” I hollered back. “We can’t not try!”
    He shrugged. “As you wish.”
    Damn right, as I wish. Now if I could just tear him away from his precious note-taking, things might start getting back to normal around here. What the hell was so damned engrossing, anyway? His last will and testament? His grocery list? I leaned over and peeked, but he was writing in a language I didn’t know.
    â€œOkay, meeting adjourned!” I shrieked. “Unless anybody has anything to add?” I half-turned and watched Jessica’s door, but it didn’t open.
    So that was that.
    Â 
    The next afternoon, I drove to my mom’s office at the U. Tina wasn’t up yet, Jessica was still avoiding me, Marc was off somewhere, and if I was exposed to much more of Sinclair’s cold shoulder, I was gonna get frostbite.
    We’d find out later tonight what, if anything, Tina and Marc had found out, but for now, the waiting was driving me nuts. The whole situation was driving me nuts.
    So, like any insecure, lonely, friendless vampire, I wanted my mommy.
    She’d had the same dumpy office for twenty years—tenure didn’t mean a decorating budget, apparently—and I made my way there in no time. DR. ELISE TAYLOR, HISTORY DEPARTMENT was etched on the glass part of the door. Her specialty was the Civil War, specifically the battle of Antietam. Like I hadn’t had my fill of that by the time I was ten.
    I could hear her talking in the hallway long before I saw her silhouette against the door. She had half-opened it and was still haranguing her colleague:
    â€œI’m not going to the thing, and you can’t make me, Bob, you absolutely can’t.”
    Then she saw I was waiting for her. Her mouth popped open, and her green eyes bulged. Her snow-white hair was straggling out of its usual neat bun; it was her post–sophomore Civil War 124 look. Then she shut the door on poor Bob and ran to me.
    â€œBetsy! You’re up!” She looked out her window, looked back at me, looked out the window again. “My God, what are you doing up?”
    â€œSurprise,” I said, holding out my arms. She jumped into them—I’d been a head taller since I was twelve—and gave me a squeeze. “I thought I’d do the pop-in.”
    â€œI love the pop-in if it’s you. So what’s happened? Is this part of being the queen? Oh!” Her hand went to her mouth. “I just realized…this means you can go to Antonia’s baby shower.”
    I grinned. “Thanks. I totally hadn’t thought of that until now. Heh.”
    â€œSo…what’s happened?”
    I ended up telling her most of it: reading the Book, and going crazy, and what I had done to Jessica and Marc and Tina. I left out what I’d done to Sinclair. Mom didn’t need any updates on my sorry sex life. Besides, she was so fond of Sinclair